November 3rd - Gi (No private time for me?)

Before class Conan approached me and said that I'd be testing for my yellow belt November 17th.  After a quick warm-up we broke up into some groups to train different things.  Conan took Fuji for some one on one time.  I worked with David and a new guy Mike on positions and some basics.

Later Ray had me work with Adam on setting up armbar from the guard.  We did 3 setups grabbing the opposite arm and then underhooking the leg into armbar, walking up the body into armbar, collar choke into armbar.  I'm going to try to get more reps with these, especially the first two.  There were little things like bridging my hips up high that I wasn't doing well before.

We broke for Judo and Conan took Adam to the side. Beggs went over some throws that we could do in no-gi.  His favorite throw seems to be o-soto gari which seems to get injected into every class.  We did it off of the opponent striking or pushing us and circle blocking and trapping it and then shoving our shoulder into their torso.  Fuji got me really good unexpectedly and I blurted out "God Damn Fuji" pretty loud.  We also worked on shoulder throw. 

I think it would be pretty cool to get some time with Conan.  I know there are some things that I would like to run by him to figure out how I can better respond in some situations.  Also because I really have no idea to expect from a testing here.  I'm confident I'll pass but I want to look good in the process.

I rolled with David for open mat.  It seems like I'm ending up in the same positions with him over and over again.  I'm on my butt and I'm doing a good just of keeping my body up and keeping him back but he eventually flattens out my legs and almost takes my back.  However I was able to setup a triangle today.  There was a point where I was up on one knee and had his arm trapped in my armpit and a hold of his wrist with my other hand.  I was able to jump rope my leg and lock my feet in triangle position.  Alas I didn't control his posture and he eventually passed.  But, it seemed like an awesome setup and it was cool that I made the connection.  David eventually moved to north/south and put me into a kimura, which was pretty strong.  I thought I could defend it but he did a good job of getting my hand away.

Me and Ken swept the floor and then worked on a few fitting in Judo throws.